Rams coach had wanted to be an agent

Havelock head coach Jim Bob Bryant, right, has led the Rams to back-to-back 3A state championships.

Byron Holland, Sun Journal Staff

By Ken Buday, Havelock News

Published: Thursday, December 20, 2012 at 03:21 PM.

When Jim Bob Bryant graduated Williamston High School and headed to Guilford College in 1991, he had his life planned out.

He would spend four years playing quarterback for the Quakers, enter law school at Wake Forest, get his law degree and become a sports agent.

Funny how things work out.

As a young 18-year-old, he couldn’t foresee the path his life has taken, a path that has brought him to Havelock High School, a path that has included coaching back-to-back state championship teams, a path that has him working with special needs students and a path that includes newfound love.

“I enjoy it because of the kids,” Bryant said of coaching football. “I enjoy being around the kids and seeing them when they first come in as freshmen, wide-eyed, and they don’t know a thing about life and don’t know a thing about football and seeing them go out their senior year when they think they got it all figured out – until they get to college.”

When Jim Bob Bryant graduated Williamston High School and headed to Guilford College in 1991, he had his life planned out.

He would spend four years playing quarterback for the Quakers, enter law school at Wake Forest, get his law degree and become a sports agent.

Funny how things work out.

As a young 18-year-old, he couldn’t foresee the path his life has taken, a path that has brought him to Havelock High School, a path that has included coaching back-to-back state championship teams, a path that has him working with special needs students and a path that includes newfound love.

“I enjoy it because of the kids,” Bryant said of coaching football. “I enjoy being around the kids and seeing them when they first come in as freshmen, wide-eyed, and they don’t know a thing about life and don’t know a thing about football and seeing them go out their senior year when they think they got it all figured out – until they get to college.”

Bryant should know. He thought he had it all figured out, too.

Becoming a coach

Bryant became a starting quarterback at Williamston High School during his sophomore season, the same year he received the Governor’s Award for Bravery and Heroism for rescuing two people caught in rip currents at Atlantic Beach. As a senior, Bryant guided the Tigers to a 9-2 record and a third-round playoff matchup against Clinton, which had three future NFL players on its roster.

“That was what we were up against,” Bryant said of the loss. “It was 42-7. They were good, and we knew they were good.”

Clinton went on to win the state title, and Bryant set his sights on playing quarterback at Guilford College before an injury ended his playing career.

“I got hurt my sophomore year, every which way you could get hurt, and transferred to East Carolina,” Bryant said. “They did not have a sports management degree, but I knew I wanted to do something in sports, so I coached and played on some intramural teams at East Carolina and really got into it, and decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

He said his father was a big influence.

“My dad has been a coach his whole life, not a high school coach, but he coached recreation leagues, and he still coaches,” Bryant said. “He plays senior league softball and senior league basketball. He does all this, and he’s 67 and he’s still involved in sports.”

Upon graduation from East Carolina, he found his way back to Williamston, serving as an assistant coach from 1996 to 2002. He maintained relationships with his old high school coaches Harold Robinson and Herbie Rogers, and still does to this day.

“Aside from my dad, my two high school coaches, I still call them for advice all the time,” he said. “Anything pops up football-wise, any situation, I call both of them and ask their advice.”

He served as an assistant coach on Williamston’s 1999 state championship team, and also helped the Tigers reach the 2001 and 2002 title games before he departed for his first head-coaching job at Greene Central High. He compiled a 42-21 record and won two conference titles, and in 2007, at age 34, he became the youngest assistant coach ever at the Shrine Bowl.

Then in 2008, he learned of a job opening as head coach at Havelock High, a school with a proud tradition of football that was coming off a 3-8 year and three straight losing seasons.

After he looked at game tapes and talked to Havelock assistant coaches, he jumped at the opportunity to come to Havelock.

“I knew if we could use the plan that I was going to bring in and everybody would buy into it, I thought that we could be successful right away,” Bryant said. “Having an advanced weight-lifting class with the majority of our football players in it year round is key. It’s very key.

“Some of the things we do in the offseason and during the season that I have learned over the years, trial and error, have proven to be very successful for us with what we do offensively and defensively. Plus, the kids have bought in, and the coaching staff does a great job of implementing the plan.”

Building a program

Bryant began to fully develop his wide-open offense after seeing what legendary prep coaches Jimmy Teague and Tommy Norwood brought to head coach Robinson in the 2002 Shrine Bowl.

He used the terminology and adapted the concepts to the players he had at Greene Central and later at Havelock.

“Our offense is very multiple,” he said. “Depending on what type of athletes we have, we can change it around. We come up with new wrinkles every year. My offensive coaches do a great job of helping me out with those new wrinkles every year depending on the personnel we have.”

But while many fans focus on the quarterback, receivers and running backs in Bryant’s spread offense, he said those who are rarely noticed are the key behind an offense that averaged 47.9 points per game in 2012.

“The biggest challenge is to find five offensive linemen who can play and do well,” Bryant said. “No matter what offensive scheme you run, if you don’t have those five guys up front, it doesn’t really make a difference what you try to run.

“We’ve been blessed to have good linemen who have bought in and enjoyed playing on the offensive line. A lot of guys don’t enjoy the offensive line because there’s no glory in it. But that’s one of the things that makes us so successful is that we’ve got a bunch of kids who don’t care who gets the credit. They just want to do what’s best for the team.”

And at Havelock, Bryant had a wild card.

“It doesn’t hurt when you’ve got great players,” he said. “When you’ve got good football players and they buy in to what we’re doing, not only does it make them great players but it makes them the best players in North Carolina.

“We adapt everything we do in the offseason, the weight room, the speed work, to fit what we do on the field. We don’t train for big, bulky kids. We train for quickness, speed and explosiveness, and that translates to what we do offensively, defensively and on special teams. I would rather have a small team that can run than a big team that’s just strong, but can’t move, especially with what we do offensively and defensively.”

In his first season at Havelock, Bryant turned Havelock into a playoff team, as the Rams went 8-4. But it was in 2009 that Bryant sensed something special was starting to happen.

Havelock won the Coastal 3A Conference championship and went 13-2, advancing to the eastern regional championship game that ended with a 24-6 loss to Eastern Alamance.

In 2010, there was reason for optimism, and the Rams again won the conference title and made it to the eastern championship for a second time, only to fall again to Eastern Alamance, finishing with an 11-4 record.

That loss motivated the Rams in 2011. In a perfect storm of football, Havelock rolled through the season 16-0, setting single-game scoring records twice with 76 points and leading the state in total offense. Havelock defeated three-time defending state champ West Rowan 38-6 to win the 3A state title. Bryant was named the state’s Associated Press Coach of the Year.

The question in 2012 was whether the Rams could repeat. After a one-point loss to eventual 4A state champ New Bern on a rainy night in August, Havelock again crushed the competition to reach the state title game. The Rams fell behind Concord 21-20 at halftime but exploded in the second half, winning 55-21 for a second straight title.

“Winning one state championship is great,” Bryant said. “Doing it two years in a row, with basically a large majority of the team that you won it with the year before, is something special. It’s definitely something special.”

“Football coaches do a lot of things that people don’t see,” Bryant said. “We meet on Sunday afternoons to do the game plan. All they see us is on Friday night, but somebody’s got to pack the game film. Somebody’s got to paint the practice field, inventory the equipment. These guys do all that, the little things that people don’t see that these coaches do. I’m lucky to have them.

“My assistant coaches are some of my best friends in the world, and I’ve only know them for five years. A couple of my assistant coaches will be in my wedding. That’s how much time we spend together and how close we are.”

The players are quick to credit Bryant.

“He’s intense,” said senior lineman Kendal Vickers, who has committed to play at South Carolina in college. “I like coaches like that, coaches who will push you until you can’t be pushed anymore.”

Pharoh Cooper, also headed to South Carolina, set the school’s single-season all-purpose yardage record this past season playing quarterback in Bryant’s offense.

“He’s a good guy to get along with,” Cooper said. “He’s going to yell at you, but he’s going to yell at you because he knows you can do better. That’s the only reason why he’s going to yell at you, to try to make you better. That’s what I like about him. He pushes everybody on the team to do their best.”

Beyond football

At Havelock High, Bryant is more than just a football coach to nine special students in his adaptive physical education class. The students have various physical or mental needs, and Bryant makes sure they are physically active.

“We do a different sport every two weeks,” he said. “We do soccer; we do catching drills; we do football; track and field; and volleyball.

A religious man, Bryant is grounded in his personal life as well. He met Colleen Ogles at a Jacksonville restaurant, and the two connected. He proposed marriage – with the help of his football team – after Havelock defeated Washington in a Nov. 15 playoff game.

“I love Colleen, and I love her son, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her,” Bryant said. “She’s at every game. She’s an athletically minded girl. We play basketball and tennis together all the time. I like that she’s active. She was a college athlete, so she can play sports and work out with me. She loves sports. She loves football. She actually wanted to get married on the football field, but I don’t think we’re going to do that.”

He said a spring wedding is likely, probably at Camp Lejeune. He plans on building a life with her and with Havelock High football.

“In five years, I think I’ll still be here at Havelock, hopefully winning our seventh state championship in a row. That’s what the goal is,” Bryant said. “Ten years from now, I hope to still be in Havelock, winning our 12th state championship in a row. And 15 or 20 years down the road, if I have a chance to step to the college level then near the end of my career where I can get retirement and coach some college football, that would be something I maybe would want to get into. Right now, I’m happy coaching high school football and I’m happy coaching at Havelock.”